Low Buck grapple build

[Ryan03]

Thanks for the tips dtd24, and mad referee, I clicked on the surplus center link and was truly amazed at the selection, and the prices seemed reasonable as well. As far as Granger goes, I was just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, the price seemed realy high to me, but I did not have all the info to compare the two [made in USA or China,], warranty, etc. I will say that most times I do not buy from them because I can normaly beat their price

 

[Nuru]

Gee that looks good.

 

[joes_427_vette]

Ryan; Looks like your off to a great start. I was talking to a neighbor about grapples and how expensive they were to buy today. We were trying to figure an angle to get a shop to cut a couple. I may have to take a tour of the salvage yards again to see if I can come up with something curved and at least 1/2 " steel. By the way... nice looking GM iron in the drive.

 

[joe48]

why not use the subsoiler shanks from TSC ,they have a big selection usually. same thing that ?? used for his backhoe thumb.

 

[dtd24]

Hey Joe thats a pretty good idea. Ryan have you thought about the plumbing at all yet?

 

[Ryan03]

I given some thought to plumbing it in, Farmtrac 270s do not come with aux. remotes, however there is a dist. block bolted to rh. side of trans case just in front of rh. side axle segment, this is where my fel. valve ties in, it appears to have a spare port in it which is where I hope to get the supply for my valve, as for the return line, I was just going to plumb it from the valve back into the trans case. I thought about stacking a aux. valve on my loader valve and using the power beyond port to supply aux valve, but was concerned that this would place the new aux valve too far off the side of tractor and make it prone to being damaged, and also add 4 additional hoses to an area already "overcrowded" with hoses. I will plumb the entire thing with weatherhead hose for now, and be using 1/2 inch hyd. quick connects near the grapple to allow for relatively easy removal and installatiion of grapple, when grapple is off of machine, I will simply hook the quick connects on fel together to keep them free of contaminents, and do the same on grapple to allow for easy positioning of cylinder for installing pins. Here are some pics of dist. block under tractor and of loader valve. I have not started any plumbing yet, all pic are of tractor as it was plumbed from dealer.

 

[Ryan03]

I just finished preparing to mount cylinder today, UPS. dropped it off right after I finished my earlier post, I will attach pictures of how I made the cardboard templates for my hydraulic cylinder mounts, tomorrow, I will trace the templates onto 1 inch steel plate and cut them out with a plasma cutter. It took some trial and error to get the length of the brackets correct so that the grapple would have the range of motion that I was looking for, but I think I have it just about right

 

[joes_427_vette]

Ryan; The front chains seem to disappear into the R-4s adjacent to the lugs. Do they do any good in this position ?

 

[3RRL]

Ryan,
You are doing a great job of building that grapple from scratch. I love seeing that. Looks like the front cylinder mount has a built in gusset for strength. Is it possible to do the same for the rear, or do you think you need it there? How wide is the grapple jaw? It looks like a nice width, wider than normal but too wide.
Rob-

 

[IslandTractor]

It looks like a nice width, wider than normal but too wide.
Rob-

I think 3RRL meant to say "but not too wide". I agree and I don't know why other bucket grapples are not this wide. For some reason the more common width is about a quarter or a third of the bucket width. I think half the bucket width makes more sense and I don't see any downside. With the wider grapple you can trap more stuff, especially brush, that would otherwise work its way loose and fall out while driving with a load.